Religious Groups’ Attitudes toward Jews in the Netherlands
NIDI M&M Team Meeting
24 Oct 2025
Introduction
- Antisemitism, including verbal hostility, social exclusion, and physical violence, threatens Jewish communities and social cohesion (Cohen, 2025; Enstad, 2025)
- Religion plays an important role in explaining antisemitic attitudes (Barna & Kovács, 2019; Öztürk & Pickel, 2021)
- Both Christianity (Pew, 2018) and Islam (Litvak, 2023) have long historical tensions toward Jews, but there are also secular roots of antisemitism (Heschel 2011)
- Aim: Examine attitudes toward Jews among religious groups in the Netherlands
- Historically strong but declining Protestantism
- Sizeable Muslim minorities (Morocco, Turkey) and other migrant groups (e.g., Suriname, Poland)
Explaining Attitudes toward Jews
- Jews are a very small, dispersed, mostly invisible minority in public life; hostility thus grounded in ingroup norms, not in outgroup threat (Verkuyten & Thijs, 2010)
- Antisemitism is a conspiratorial worldview rooted in myths (“the rumor about the Jews”; Adorno, 1954); negative attitudes toward Jews are a key component of antisemitism
- Antisemitic norms can persist in some Christian (Munson, 2018; Pargament et al., 2007) and Muslim communities (Nyhan & Zeitzoff, 2018; Weinberg, 2020)
Religiosity and Attitudes toward Jews
- Christian anti-Judaism has historically shaped antisemitic views in Europe, e.g. belief that Jews are responsible for Christ’s death (Pargament et al., 2007)
- Large-scale anti-Jewish pogroms historically less frequent in Muslim societies than in Christian Europe
- Still, Jews were subordinated as Dhimmis, and 20th-century Nazi propaganda circulated widely in the Arab world and imported European-style antisemitic tropes (Herf, 2014; Küntzel, 2005)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict often viewed as symbol of Western dominance among many Muslims (Zhirkov et al., 2014), projected on Jews as a collective (Jacobs et al., 2011)
- Expectation: Attitudes toward Jews most positive among non-religious respondents, less positive among Christians, and least among Muslims
The Role of Religion
- If religion drives attitudes toward Jews, variation should depend on how central religion is within groups
- E.g.: Fundamentalist interpretations foster antisemitic beliefs across religions (Fischer & Wetzels, 2024; Öztürk & Pickel, 2021)
- Expectation: Higher importance of religiosity is associated with more negative attitudes
The Role of Education
- Education generally predicts tolerance toward outgroups (Hainmueller & Hiscox, 2007; Velásquez, 2024)
- In Western contexts, higher education has also shown to lower antisemitism (Hinz et al., 2024; 2025; Nyhan et al., 2024)
- Expectation: Higher education of religiosity is associated with more positive attitudes
The Role of Migration
- Acculturation theories suggest that migrants’ attitudes adjust toward majority norms (Alba & Nee, 1997; White et al., 2008)
- If true, time in host country and generation status should lead to a convergence toward natives (Velásquez, 2024; Becker, 2019)
- Expectation: More time in the Netherlands and later generations show more positive attitudes among migrants
Data and Variables
- Survey Integratie Minderheden 2015
- Outcome: Feelings thermometer toward Jews from 0 (very cold/negative) to 100 (very warm/positive)
- Religious denomination: 31.8% none, 37.1% Christian, 17.8% Muslim, (16.9% Hindu)
- Origin: 13.9% Moroccan, 14.6% Turkish, 16.9% Surinamese, 17.8% Antillean/Aruban, 19% Polish, 17.8% native Dutch
- Migrant generation: 57.5% first, 24.6% second generation, 17.8% native Dutch
- Religious Importance: Sum index of four items (e. g.: “My faith is an important part of me”); Non-believers set to 0
- Controls: age, gender, education, ingroup evaluation (baseline rating tendencies)
Average Attitude toward Jews by Religion
Average Attitude toward Jews by Religious Subgroup
Regression Model
Interaction: Religion and Religious Importance
Interaction: Religion and Education
Interaction: Religion and Generational Status
Interaction: Religion and Years since Migration
Conclusion
- Significant differences in attitudes across, but also within religious groups
- Attitudes depend on:
- Negative effect of the importance of religion (for Muslims)
- Positive effect of higher education (for all, strongest for Muslims)
- Migration generation (for Christians and non-religious)
- Years since migration (for Christians)
- Next steps: Further examine heterogeneity within religious groups
- More on the Dutch context?
Annex: Interactions by Religious Subgroups
Interaction: Religion and Religious Importance
Interaction: Religion and Education
Interaction: Religion and Generational Status
Interaction: Religion and Years since Migration (Migrants Only)